Hear the Earliest Known Talking Heads Recordings (1975)

We’ve fea­tured a fair few ear­ly Talk­ing Heads per­for­mances, from Dort­mund and Rome in 1980 to Syra­cuse in 1978 all the way back to CBGB in 1975. But you haven’t real­ly heard ear­ly Talk­ing Heads until you’ve heard the ear­li­est Talk­ing Heads. The same year of that CBGB show (one of many they played after their debut there open­ing for the Ramones), the trio of David Byrne, Chris Frantz, and Tina Wey­mouth record­ed a series of demos at CBS stu­dios. Still unsigned and in their ear­ly twen­ties, this first con­fig­u­ra­tion of the Heads (after the band, new­ly arrived in New York, shed their iden­ti­ty as “The Artis­tics” from their days togeth­er at the Rhode Island School of Design) laid down the very first known record­ed ver­sions of such notable tracks as “Psy­cho Killer” above, “Thank You for Send­ing Me an Angel” below, and “I’m Not in Love” below.

You can find a fuller playlist, which includes more songs from these CBS ses­sions like “I Wish You Would­n’t Say That,” “Ten­ta­tive Deci­sions,” and “Stay Hun­gry,” here. We often hear these songs described as the defin­ing mate­r­i­al of a pio­neer­ing “post-punk” band like Talk­ing Heads, so the fact that all these tracks come from 1975 make them per­haps the first exam­ples of the genre ever record­ed. This way of play­ing slight­ly ahead of their time may actu­al­ly have kept the group from find­ing a label to sign them until 1977, when Sire picked up the now-quar­tet (with the addi­tion of mul­ti-instru­men­tal­ist Jer­ry Har­ri­son) and put out the immor­tal pair of LPs Talk­ing Heads: 77 and More Songs About Build­ings and Food. Yes, even though they’d record­ed these demos at CBS stu­dios, CBS Records passed up the chance to take them on. Sure­ly they lived it down more quick­ly than did Dec­ca Records after hav­ing reject­ed The Bea­t­les, but still, nobody every stayed atop the zeit­geist by turn­ing their back to the Talk­ing Heads.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Watch the Talk­ing Heads Play Live in Dort­mund, Ger­many Dur­ing Their Hey­day (1980)

Watch the Talk­ing Heads Play a Vin­tage Con­cert in Syra­cuse (1978)

Talk­ing Heads Play CBGB, the New York Club that Shaped Their Sound (1975)

Live in Rome, 1980: The Talk­ing Heads Con­cert Film You Haven’t Seen

Talk­ing Heads’ “This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” Per­formed on Tra­di­tion­al Chi­nese Instru­ments

David Byrne: How Archi­tec­ture Helped Music Evolve

Col­in Mar­shall hosts and pro­duces Note­book on Cities and Cul­ture and writes essays on cities, lan­guage, Asia, and men’s style. He’s at work on a book about Los Ange­les, A Los Ange­les Primer. Fol­low him on Twit­ter at @colinmarshall or on Face­book.